This invention relates to a procedure for adaptively setting a hearing aid and a hearing aid.
The configuration of the outer capsule of hearing aids, and especially of in-the-ear hearing aids, in many cases does not take into consideration whether the hearing aid concerned is to be worn in the left or in the right ear.
It is thus entirely possible to manufacture uniform hearing aids regardless of whether they are to be used on the left or the right ear.
However, if the hearing aid in question incorporates two or more microphones, for instance in order to establish for the hearing-aid signal processing unit a particular reception pattern relative to the direction of the impinging sound wave, these microphones must be placed on or in the ear in a specific position in relation to the head; for example, for frontally received audio signals a microphone must point forward, whether it is worn on the left or on the right ear.
It follows that for basically uniform hearing aids, it is necessary after all to produce and handle two variations, one for the left ear and one for the right ear. This requirement is illustrated in FIG. 1 which is a schematic top view of two in-the-ear hearing aids, one for the left ear L, the other for the right ear R. As can be seen, the microphone V which serves to process audio signals received from the front and the microphone H which processes audio signals received from behind are positioned in the otherwise uniform hearing aid in mirror-image fashion.
It goes without saying that the resulting need to produce hearing-aid sets with different microphone configurations, respectively for left-ear devices L and right-ear devices R as shown in FIG. 1, constitutes a significant drawback.
The basic concept employed in the hearing aid involves directional switchability of the signal-processing microphones. Accordingly, only one hearing-aid configuration need be manufactured and, preferably, it is not until an individual is fitted with a hearing aid that the desired setting between the respective microphone of the signal processing unit and, ultimately, the integrated output converter of the hearing aid, is selected by means of the appropriate switch position.